A Page About Us.....

About myself... Lal.

My name is Laurence Cook, I was born, brought up and have lived and worked all my life, in or near Plaistow, which is located in the east end of London, in the centre of the London Borough of Newham. I was born during World War Two, in what was then considered to be, a very hazardous place, one of Goering's Luftwaffes' prime targets - the industrial 'heart' of London and it's docklands. As a very young child, I can remember derelict areas where German bombs had exploded, and what great places for playing various games they made. It was probably very dangerous, but as a youngster my imagination changed the 'debris' into the same landscape I had seen at that Saturday mornings' film show - the American Wild-West, Tarzan's jungle or a pirate's island..

I attended Denmark Street (later - Ravenscroft) primary & junior School, and, like my wife Amy (although a few years earlier than her) went on to Pretoria Secondary Modern (now - Eastlea). I was one of those few that 'got on' with the teachers and generally enjoyed my 'education' and that period of my life.

I always considered myself lucky to have been a teenager during the late 50s and early 60s when great music, performed by artistes like Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, The Drifters, Duane Eddy, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and so many others was so much in abundance, so new and so innovative. British 'pop' groups did not figure that highly in my teenage estimation and it would have shown in my early record purchases, but a few were bought, although relatively unknown, even at that time - Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Nero and the Gladiators, Screaming Lord Sutch with the Savages, and of course a little later the better known: Eric Burden's Animals and The Stones. Also, only a few British solo artiste's records were bought: Billy Fury and Adam Faith were among my 'acceptables'.

At that time employment for teenagers was easy to find, making spending money easy to obtain, less of the worry it is today, and this gave us more time and resources for the pursuit of pleasure. I worked in many and various jobs as a teenager: shops, warehouses, factories, offices, some jobs lasting only days or weeks, if boring or disliked.

In those days I enjoyed being with friends, going to dances, parties, pubs, soccer matches, go-kart racing, wearing smart suits (to meet various fashions), driving my Vauxhall VX along empty country roads and, of course, standing on the corner watching all those girls go by. I suppose there must have been a few 'down' sides, but I can't remember them.....

As a teenager I had tackled many jobs, from the mundane, to the hard and the easy, then as a young man of twenty-one I drove long-distance lorries (trucks) around England, Scotland and Wales for a while, before eventually settling down to working locally along with a great bunch of people for British Aluminium (later British Alcan Aluminium) for nearly twenty five years. Shortly after being made redundant (the company closed the local plant at the end of the late 80s 'recession') I found myself an invalid due to various health problems, and unable to continue active 'work'.

My interests nowadays vary from watching West Ham United soccer team win or lose, looking after my baby grandaughter, reading, writing, cooking, DIY, genealogy and computer related projects, of which this is a part.

About my wife.... Amy.

 (Written by my gorgeous wife when we first set up
these pages.  Sadly Amy passed away on
January 1st 2006 and I miss her so much. Lal.)

My name is Amy Cook, formerly Irons, I was actually born and brought up in a pub in London's east-end, and was the youngest of my dad's seven children. My dad's family had always been publicans in the areas of east and north-east London for many generations, the list of pubs they ran over the years is quite impressive -

The Marquis of Salisbury (E16); The Boleyn Tavern , The Army & Navy, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Brittania, The Red Lion (all E13); The Recreation Tavern (Poplar), The William IV (Edmonton), The Dartmouth Arms (E16), Etc. Many are still in existance though some have disappeared or have been converted to other uses over the years, at the moment (1999) after several years of closure, my birthplace - The Salisbury - after a few years of being boarded up, was back in the business of being a 'pub' for a while - but it is apparently being made into dwellings with the upper floors converted into a number of private flats (small apartments).

My personal 'claim to fame' is that on my 14th birthday ( November 1963 ) I saw The Beatles 'live' at East Ham Granada, then a venue for many new and established stars & groups. They were just beginning to become 'known' at that time, and I was one of their horde of screaming teenage fans, whose inexplicable reactions to the Fab Four's every move, was something many parents didn't quite understand.

I attended both the local junior school (Hilda Road) and - like my future husband - the local secondary school (Pretoria) which have since been joined together to make one large, senior 'community' school (Eastlea), where my daughter attended as a senior student, as do most of the local children. It can be quite a strange feeling whenever I enter the part of the school now aimed at providing adult education for local residents, knowing it was once the infant school that I began attending at 5 years of age.

I have always lived and worked in offices (as a typist / VDU operator / admin assistant) in and around the Newham area, and sometimes feel it would be nice to move away one day, even though many of my friends still live nearby, so lets hope that I win the lottery and can start a web-page all about my new 'local' area, possibly in St. Lucia, Malta, Jersey or .......

I enjoy 'socialising' (or gassing as Lal calls it) with friends, playing with my granddaughter, music of all sorts, reading - mainly historical fiction or mysteries, TV detective/medical serials, eating out, or any non-household activity, I also regularly take adult education courses to improve my general knowledge and have successfully completed an OU Social Science course. At the moment, I am helping run the local TA to try to improve our local area.  (written in 1997)